


The Earthenking and the Mother of Fire

by Holygreensaints (Vortaesthetic)



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Dragons, Gen, Saint Cichol - Freeform, Saints, this is strange but have this anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:55:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25248772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vortaesthetic/pseuds/Holygreensaints
Summary: A book of fairytales from Central Fódlan has a personal connection to the Archbishop's Advisor.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 21
Collections: Seteth Week Fics





	The Earthenking and the Mother of Fire

The Earthenking and The Mother Of Fire  
(Prompt: Battle/Dragon)

_In the cradle of the earth that was Zanado dwelt the Mother of Fire._

_She had fallen from the stars, alighting upon the earth. Her richness of spirit nourished the starving world which had long grown fallow from neglect._

_The Mother fed her spirit to the world for ages, but her task was lengthy and lonely. To share her burden, she used her gifts to create her kin._

_From her blood and fertile, blossoming earth, she molded a being. She breathed her spirit into it and gifted it with the power of her faith. She tasked this being with sharing his faith and wise guidance with the peoples of the land._

_This being, The Earthenking, was mighty and wise. Long of neck and fang and claw with wings that spanned the sky. The Earthenking nested in the cradle of the Oghma, keeping watch over valley and plain with eyes bright as jewels._

_Wherever the Earthenking tread, the soil turned lush and green, spilling over with life. Wherever he nested, forests burst from the earth and reached toward the sky in prayer. His spine was ridged with shimmering crystal and the walls of the mountains themselves hummed with song whenever he neared._

_The people of the Gronder plains approached him, offering gifts of sacrifice to appease the beast. They feared wrath and ruin from the great wild beasts that wandered the land, fearing him to be among them. He turned away their gifts of flesh and riches and tribute outright. He blessed their fields with harvest and taught them the ways of the blessed Fire-Mother, who warmed the earth and held all life in her hands._

_The Earthenking fought great beasts with fang, claw, and verdant fire, burning away the hide, flesh and bone of the wicked, corrupted beasts to cleanse the land of their poison. He blessed warrior and mother alike who asked for gifts of protection. He gifted their healers with rare herbs in abundance and their children with sweet-smelling flowers._

_His mighty curved horns held aloft the heavens and his hide glowed alight like stars in the darkness. From his mane were the vines that flowered and bound together the earth. The Mother of Fire was the arbiter of souls, but The Earthenking was its shepherd, guiding and blessing the peoples of the land._

_One day, The Earthenking took the form of a man. He walked among the people, passing from village to village westward toward the sea, spreading word of the deeds of the Mother of Fire. He pleaded for peace wherever war scarred the land. For serenity, wherever troubles weighed down souls. For understanding wherever anger and confusion reigned._

_Westward The Earthenking traveled, his head adorned with crowns of flowers. He followed the call of his siblings to the great city by the sea._

_It is said that The Earthenking fell in love there. He returned to the Oghma a changed being. The gaze of thr Earthenking often lingered westward, toward the sea. When mothers and lovers came to seek his blessings, he grew quiet and thoughtful and longed for Fódlan's shores._

_One day, a holy woman clothed in blue robes came to the mountains from the far-west. She carried with her the scent and songs of the sea. She spoke to The Earthenking of her love and devotion for him. The Maiden of the Main won his heart and he left the mountains with her, returning to the west._

_He was said to have fought in many legendary battles over the years as man and divine beast both, taking up arms alongside the other Divine Children to strike down the wicked souls that scoured the land. It is said that when his trials were finally at an end, he laid down to slumber in the embers of the world, waiting for the day his spirit would be called upon once more._

_To this day, the people of the mountains still make pilgrimages to leave flowers at the altar in the Sealed Forest as thanks for his blessings, which have endured over time. They leave antlers for him, so that he may be protected as he had protected them. They light candles to illuminate the path of the blessed Earth-King, so that he may find his way back home, to the mountain cradle he nurtured so well._

\----

Seteth closed the book carefully with shaking hands. It felt impossibly heavy in his grip as he slid it carefully back into the row of books in his private collection. So very old, it was. Delicate. Dangerous.

In truth, he was never quite sure why he kept this book. Seteth had worked very hard over the years to distance his and Flayn's modern identities from their pasts, meticulously weeding out anything that could possibly give their true names away. He took great pains to scrub even the most innocuous references from their lives.

Though their very presence at Garreg Mach posed significant risk, that was a more difficult situation to negotiate. As a single father to a daughter fresh out of a millennia-long coma, there weren't many prospects for a stable home in modern Fódlan. Economically and culturally, it was much more difficult to support and tend to Flayn's needs and maintain adequate anonymity outside of the support of Seiros' church. So they stayed and Seteth was drawn ever deeper into the administrative quicksand that was the Church of Seiros.

He often found himself screening library manuscripts, taking great care to trace and vet any books or documents that could conceivably be used to trace their identities. He sorted through every book on the shelves and all that passed through donations. His keen eyes scanned the pages for images and descriptions of the Holy Dragons, as well as for books that professed tracings of saintly lineages spanning back to ancient times. Pictorial and anecdotal representations of the saints were of particular concern.

Items that were poorly chronicled, inconsequential, or outright erroneous were typically allowed to remain (provided that they weren't taboo in another sense), lest a noticeable lack of information inadvertently and paradoxically draw attention to his efforts.

This book could be dangerous in the right hands. He'd come into possession of it when reviewing an intake of literature from the estate of an old bookseller in Magdred. This particular donation was notable because it contained a lot of rare, exotic pieces and first-edition books, with a focus on folklore from various local cultures. He remembered stumbling across this book and feeling the blood in his veins turn to ice. He had prayed that there were no clues hidden within these enchanted pages to tie them to their Nabatean identities.

Seiros' doctrine is remarkably strict and specific when it comes to folk-religion pieces like this. While these stories had obviously been informed at some level by the Sothis faith, these tales predate the rise of the Church as the preeminent religion in the land. The directives of the Church would require an item like this be destroyed, as it depicts a polytheistic interpretation of the faith. Instead of destroying it, he secreted it away to his own quarters to safeguard it. He'd wanted to study the secrets hidden within, curious to find out how history had elected to describe him.

It had been (and still was) a strange feeling to look inside this book and see a fictionalized version of himself pressed into its pages. To see scenes from his youth, back when he freely roamed the world in his true form and knew no fear of humankind. To see illustrations of his dragon form towering over the land, wings outstretched and horns piercing the sky.

There was a great deal of exaggeration to be found here, of course. It was an anthology of old folktales. Creative and artistic liberties were to be expected. These stories had been passed around the region long before the advent of Seiros's faith, and in that time had taken on lives of their own. The people of the mountains had envisioned him as a guardian deity, and the stories hidden within reflected their need to pin their hopes and fears and dreams on this benign creature they did not understand. They mistook a pious man for a benevolent god.

That has been a long-fought battle over the course of his life. Be it saint, god, or other obsequious title, Seteth and his kin cared little for worship and reverence. Flayn finds it amusing still--owing to her youth and inexperience with the nature of it-- but she would come to learn that lesson in time. Worship never came free. As innocent and well-meaning as it seemed, there was always a cost. The expectations of those that kneel to you can be enough to compromise you in turn. He'd seen emotion and fervor twist the purest souls into spirals of delusion and had no taste for it. Neither did his brothers. It had been to his dismay that he had returned to Garreg Mach to find himself and Flayn canonized as saints.

Still, he could see where the people of old could have come to that conclusion. Unlike Macuil, Cichol made frequent contact with humans, as beast and man both. Children lost in the woods would often call out to him when they were unsure how to find their way home. Village elders would trek through forests bent-backed and shuffling, begging for his aid in saving their homes from disaster. He would come to their towns and their places of worship to learn what it meant to live among them. To be known to them.

Cichol had been very deliberate in those days about neutrality. Warbands aplenty had sought him out, hoping his innate powers could make their weapons more deadly or their warriors more vital. They were often met with disappointment. Cichol did not care to take the side of any human factions in their territorial disputes, but no matter how many times he had said so, it never stopped the hopefuls from seeking him out anyway.

There had been battles in his youth, of course. The stakes were generally small in those days. Twisted, wild beasts wandered through his forests and he would hunt them down. His brothers would seek him out and challenge him in friendly combat. Hopeful big-game hunters would appear from time to time intending to claim his mighty crown of horns for their own and they would meet their death by fang, claw or dragonfire.

Oh, he missed those days. The power. The innocence. The wonder. How hopeful the future had seemed. How fond of humans he had grown. Looking at himself now, irreversibly changed, he can't help but mourn what has been lost. Some days, Seteth scarcely recognizes himself. The strength and optimism of his youth had long since given way to stubbornness and fear, his heart scarred by tragedy.

The end of the tale is what hurts the most. The way it is told, the Earth Dragon fought in a great battle, emerged victorious, and retreated back into a peaceful, ages-long slumber, set to arise again at some future date.

Part of what turns his stomach is because it is not entirely untrue. He had been on the field of battle at bloody Tailtean, where he'd been shot through with an arrow. His dear wife had fallen to a line of lances, sacrificing her life to protect his daughter. He remembers rendering enemy knights to pieces with a blunted axe in his haste to reach his daughter. Remembers stumbling blindly through the mounds of bodies and the stinging, cold rain with Cethleann in his arms, desperately seeking safety while nurturing her failing spark of life.

He'd locked himself away in caverns for a millennia afterward, doing everything he could to save his daughter's life. He did not sleep. He keened and mourned and suffered in his silent exile. He despaired. Neither Fódlan nor his duty as Sothis' shepherd had been a thought at all.

All that once-grand beast could do is stew in regret and guilt, keeping vigil over the last good thing remaining in his life. Locked away underground for hundreds of years, the power that had once hummed in his bones had eventually gone quiet, leaving him as little more than a mere man. A weak man who would bear the burden of his failures for centuries to come.

He forced his gaze away from the book with a shuddering sigh. The smart thing to do would be to burn the damn book. A clever enough person could conceivably get their hands on it and connect it to the stories of the saints, an avoidable enough complication easily remedied by _destroying the damn book._

But no matter how many times he's convinced himself to do it over the years, he knows that he never will.

Reading it is his penance. In understanding it, he's learned that nothing the Nabatea have ever done was without consequence. Nothing ever done without notice. Humans would imprint meanings and designs on their deeds and in doing so, held the power to turn the legacies of the Nabatea into weapons as dangerous as those made from their bones.

He prays that Rhea understands that lesson.


End file.
